Editorial 2: An Energy Atmanirbharta Act
Context:
Despite technological progress and changing global energy patterns, India’s dependence on imported hydrocarbons continues to threaten its economic stability and strategic autonomy. The government should institutionalize an Energy Atmanirbharta Act — a comprehensive, coordinated approach to ensure India’s energy resilience, sustainability, and independence.
Need for a Unified Energy Vision:
- India’s developmental vision, reflected in “Viksit Bharat” (Developed India) and “Atmanirbhar Bharat” (Self-reliant India), demands an equally strong energy policy.
- However, the country currently lacks a central authority that oversees the entire energy ecosystem including coal, oil, gas, renewable, and nuclear energy.
- Responsibilities are fragmented across multiple ministries, leading to policy incoherence.
- Government must create a Ministry of Energy headed by a cabinet-rank minister to coordinate and implement an integrated energy roadmap.
- This would ensure consistency across various sectors, efficient resource allocation, and faster decision-making.
- The new framework should link energy security with three complementary goals — economic efficiency, environmental sustainability, and social inclusiveness.
Self-Sufficiency and Self-Reliance:
- There is a key distinction between self-sufficiency and self-reliance.
- Self-sufficiency implies producing all that a country consumes — an unrealistic goal for India, which currently imports about 85% of its crude oil and 50% of its gas.
- Self-reliance, on the other hand, means ensuring energy security through diversified supply chains, domestic production, innovation, and reduced vulnerability to external shocks.
- India’s dependence on imported hydrocarbons is rooted in limited exploration success and slow commercial development of domestic reserves.
- Although the country has 26 sedimentary basins, most remain underexplored due to regulatory hurdles and technological constraints.
- Therefore, rather than pursuing total self-sufficiency, India must aim for strategic self-reliance. It involves achieving resilience through diversification and domestic capability-building.
Three guiding pillars for the proposed Energy Atmanirbharta Act:
- Energy Security: Ensuring uninterrupted, affordable, and reliable energy supply through domestic production, diversification of imports, and storage infrastructure.
- India must reduce exposure to volatile international markets by developing strategic reserves and expanding renewable energy sources.
- Energy Transition: Accelerating the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy. This includes expanding solar and wind capacity, developing green hydrogen, electrifying transport, and improving energy efficiency.
- India should align its energy transition with its developmental needs, balancing growth with environmental responsibility.
- Technological and Industrial Independence: Building domestic capacity to manufacture critical energy technologies such as batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines, rather than relying heavily on imports from countries like China.
- This also involves securing access to essential minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel through strategic international partnerships with resource-rich nations like Australia and Indonesia.
Historical lessons from Global oil crisis and present global uncertainties:
- The 1973 oil crisis exposed how dependence on foreign energy can cripple economies.
- Nations like Japan responded by diversifying energy sources, improving efficiency, and investing in renewable energy.
- Similarly, India must learn from history and insulate itself from future global energy disruptions.
- Today’s geopolitical tensions including the Russia-Ukraine war, U.S.-China rivalry, and disruptions in critical mineral supply chains further highlight the need for a resilient energy strategy.
- While fossil fuel markets remain uncertain, the green energy transition has created new dependencies on minerals and technologies concentrated in a few countries.
- India must therefore secure diversified, long-term partnerships and invest in domestic processing of critical materials to avoid repeating past mistakes.
Sustainable energy development:
- India’s energy policy cannot focus solely on economics; it must also incorporate ecological responsibility.
- Global efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C have largely failed, and the burden of balancing growth with climate goals is now greater than ever.
- India, as one of the fastest-growing major economies, must demonstrate that it can pursue rapid development without compromising environmental integrity.
- This requires stronger domestic policies on renewable expansion, green financing, carbon pricing, and technology innovation.
- India should also actively participate in global climate diplomacy not merely as a follower, but as a proactive leader shaping the future of sustainable energy.
- The proposed Energy Atmanirbharta Act should serve as a strategic framework that unifies India’s diverse energy policies under one vision. It should institutionalize coordination among ministries and states.
- It must promote domestic exploration, clean technology, and critical mineral processing, encourage private sector participation and research innovation.
- It should integrate energy access, affordability, and sustainability into policy outcomes.
Way Forward:
Energy Atmanirbharta does not mean the isolation from global systems. It means intelligent integration using global partnerships to strengthen domestic capabilities. The Act would ensure India’s energy independence while fulfilling its commitments to climate responsibility and economic growth. An Energy Atmanirbharta Act would not only safeguard India from future energy crises but also position it as a leader in the global energy transition. This vision of energy independence must become a cornerstone of India’s journey toward Viksit Bharat.